The U-2 reconnaissance reports that Bundy received in full detail two 70-foot-long MRBMs at San Cristobal. The news that Bundy would eventually have to expose to President Kennedy would sound alarms not just in his administra

Initially most of the other members of Ex Comm barring the members of the actually military who were present, supported a much more peaceful way of dealing with the situation. Diplomacy was seen as an alternative means of dealing with such an explosive situation. Llewellyn Thompson advocated a naval blockade of Cuba.(Dolan & Scariano p.105) Believing it "very highly doubtful the Russians would resist a blockade against military weapons . . ."(Dolan & Scariano p.105) Thompson argued that the best way to avoid peace or at least legitimatize an invasion of Cuba was a combined stern coercion of blockade with a public demand that Moscow dismantle its missile sites in Cuba. Thompson realized that odds were this would not be enough to remove the missiles already existing in Cuba and would not prevent them from becoming operational in the near future. He suggested threatening to use force if Khrushchev ignored the U.S. demand. "I think we should be under no illusions that this would probably in the end lead to the same thing," he said with some resignation. "But we would do it under an entirely different posture and background, and much less danger of getting into the big war."(Fursenko & Naftali p.253)

Bolshakov however did not prove to be totally useless to the Kennedy administration in resolving the missile crisis. On October 23, Frank Holeman revealed to Bolshakov, that the United States was willing to make a swap, Soviet nuclear ballistic missiles on the island of Cuba, in exchange for American ballistic nuclear missiles in the NATO State of Turkey on the borders of the Soviet Union. Kennedy was looking to remove the missiles in Turkey anyway for they had become obsolete upon the development of a larger quantity of higher quality missiles.(Cheney p.94) However GRU office in Washington chose to sit on the information and not reveal it to Khrushchev and the Soviet presidium just yet. Through Kennedy's Bolshakov connection, it was first revealed that the Kennedy administration was willing to make a swap of missile installation in respective Soviet and American allied states.(Brugioni p.224)

Despite the rejection by his superior and despite relaying the message back to Holeman that he would be unable to meet with the attorney general, Bolshakov decided to risk it anyway and meet up with Holeman on May 9th of 1961, just ten days after Holeman made his initial proposal. Bolshakov chose the date of May 9th for the meeting with Bobby Kennedy because it was a Soviet holiday in celebration of the defeat of fascism in 1945, and his office with the GRU would be understaffed as most of his colleagues would be home enjoying the holiday. Thus Bolshakov would be able to move around much easier.(Brugioni p.166)

Finally Kennedy would play the role of messenger and negotiator with the Soviet ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Dobrynin, in negotiating the final deal and trade off to defuse the conflict and end it once and for all. Involved in this secret negotiating, the knowledge of which was possessed by less then ten men in both the United States and the Soviet Union at this time is also laden with controversy, involving classified documents and different accounts of the true story revealed on both the American and Soviet side of the conflict, including the memoirs of Nikita S. Khrushchev himself.(Chang & Kornbluh p.237)

Kennedy would indeed take some convincing that the blockade would be a safer alternative to an outright surgical air strike on Soviet missile positions in Cuba. However in light of new CIA intelligence that intelligence agency understood that the operational status of the missiles and the possibility of hitherto undiscovered missile sites were the issues closest to the president's heart and potentially most relevant to his final decision.(Hinckle & William p.287)

Ultimately, however, Khrushchev and the Soviet Union used the Kennedy-Bolshakov channel in a deceitful manner, deceiving the intelligen

Some common words found in the essay are:
Robert Kennedy, Ex Comm, Soviet Union, President Kennedy, Soviet Island, Bobby Kennedy, Atlantic Ocean, Roswell Gilpatric, Frank Holeman, Premier Khrushchev, robert kennedy, air strike, ex comm, soviet union, bobby kennedy, naval blockade, nuclear missiles, kennedy administration, island cuba, ex comm meetings, comm meetings, soviet intelligence officer, kennedy play role, bolshakov left dark, bolshakov bobby kennedy's,
Approximate Word count = 5285
Approximate Pages = 21 (250 words per page double spaced)